Raiders of our unprotected parks

AUSTRALIA'S national parks are not national, because they were set up before Federation; rather than being owned by the sovereign state, they are owned by the states.

In each state the parks are managed by different authorities: in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania, the protected areas used to be run by a ''national parks and wildlife service''; Victoria prefers to call its authority Parks Victoria, while in South Australia the matter is under the aegis of the Department for Environment and Heritage, and in Western Australia of the Department of Environment and Conservation.

The Northern Territory Parks and Conservation Masterplan is being developed by the NT Government, through the Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts, in association with the federal Department of the Environment and Heritage (Parks Australia North), and the Northern Territory Aboriginal Land Councils. Its main focus is the conservation of biodiversity in the NT.

Such a ragbag of afterthoughts suggests a pretty low level of commitment to the real purpose of national parks, which is conservation. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature set out the basic definition of a national park in 1969, and refined it in 1971. A national park has to consist of at least 1000 hectares, has to have conservation as its main aim, has to enjoy statutory legal protection, and ''has to have a budget and staff sufficient to provide effective protection''. On this ground alone, most Australian national parks should be disqualified.

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The national park I know best is the Natural Bridge section of the Springbrook National Park. I have to drive through its car park to get in or out of our rainforest rehabilitation project, crunching over broken glass, past plastic rain sheets, bottles, condoms, cans, bongs, disposable nappies, underwear - and scrub turkeys scavenging discarded food. The park attracts 300,000 visitors a year and is open 24 hours every day of the year. Thieves regularly break into the parked cars.

The only regular maintenance involves blowing leaves off the paths and keeping the toilets usable. No attempt to reduce weed infestation is ever made. Though there are signs begging visitors not to swim in the creek, which is an important frog and invertebrate habitat, the people getting out of their cars are all in bathers. If there was a warden to tell them to keep to the designated paths and out of the creek, he (or more likely she) would simply be told to bugger off.

Far from having a budget and staff sufficient to protect the environment, many of our fragmentary reserve areas have to manage with no resources or manpower. The rarest animal in most of our national parks is a warden. When state governments turned their state forests into national parks at the stroke of a pen, the forestry workers could have been retrained as wardens; instead, they were simply thrown out of work. Feral animal control should be done by professionals, but this week's great wheeze is to get sportsmen to pay for a shooting permit as if they were bagging pheasants on a great estate. Those of us who shrink at the thought of sharing wild nature with people who kill animals for fun will just have to stay home.

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service now seems to have disappeared into two departments - the Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing, and the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.

The change would seem to reflect a tacit assumption that the role of national parks is to provide opportunities for ''adventure'' - quad-biking, four-wheel-driving, horse-riding, camping, picnicking, rock-climbing, bungee-jumping, team-building, abseiling, hang-gliding and all kinds of thrills and spills, with all the assorted support services for individuals who, sober, drunk or stoned, will get lost or hurt themselves.

Now I learn that ''to ensure a balance between conservation of the state's iconic national parks and tourism, the Queensland government - through the Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing's Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Tourism Queensland and the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation - has developed the Tourism in Protected Areas (TIPA) framework in partnership with the tourism sector''.

The first ''protected area'' singled out for systematic commercialisation is Natural Bridge. If that means we might get guards for the car park, elimination of feral plants and animals, daily rubbish removal; and no more swimming, throwing stones at the turkeys, boy-racing or wheelie-popping, I could be glad. What we'll probably get is more meetings, hot air, paperwork and rorting, while our plants and animals will be at greater risk than ever.

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